composition of the Congress made it impossible to take up specific measures.

Even more plainly it was made clear by the discussions that the New Testament expressly excludes the direct derivation of specific social demands from its teachings. The problems of social and economic organization, before which we now stand, have nothing in common with the relations of trade and property with which Jesus or Paul had to do. Profound study of the views of early Christians showed that they cannot be used for comparison with those formed in the presence of our duties and difficulties. The primitive mode of thinking has been set aside by better historical knowledge of the past and better economic understanding of the present. In close connection with addresses before the Congress other developments may be noted. For example, a lecture of the jurist, Professor Sohm, in the general assembly of the Society for Inner Missions, in 1895; the foundation of the National Social Society, in 1896, which, after warm discussion of two days, declined to call itself "Christian Social;" and the book of Pastor Frederick Naumann which he wrote after his Palestinian travels (Asia, 1899). Naumann had been formerly one of the most earnest representatives of a socialism which was derived directly from the teachings of Jesus. His book Jesus as Man of the People is the classic of this view in Germany. But as early as 1896 Naumann openly revealed his change of attitude at the founding of the National Social Society. In the volume Asia, and in some places in his political work Democracy and Emperor, published a year later, he has given reasons for this change. In viewing the oriental countries, which recall Jesus to mind, these doubts occur to him:

Many of his words would not fit the present population. "Give to him who asks, and turn not away from him who will borrow from thee," sounds out of place when one has to do with these beggars of Olivet. The sentence, "Behold the fowls of the air, etc.," makes a strong impression when read in modern Palestine. Could Jesus talk in that way to a people to whom it must be preached: Go to the colonies of German Templars and see how they work! Your Heavenly Father feeds them; since they work with sweat upon their brows; they plow deep, make drains, build roads, provide wholesome

food, improve the water supply, clothe themselves decently! Did Jesus have a people before him whose culture aspirations were so strong that a counterweight was needed? Jesus went and came on the roads without doing anything for their improvement. The Jesus we think of went about in a well-ordered country and conciliated classes by the spirit of brotherhood. That he was in a country where the very beginnings of progress were wanting, and that he had no word for progress, came forcibly to me when I read the New Testament with the eyes of an oriental traveler. I lost something which had value for me—the earthly Helper who sees all forms of human need. He who has acquired the habit of thinking on social questions must regard these roads from the standpoint of Christian action. Did Jesus speak of patience or of renovation? Did he have our ideals of culture? Had he any ideals of culture? Did he seek to heal the poverty of Palestine or only to mitigate evils by alms and miracles? Up to this time I had seen in all helpful, organized activities the working of the life of Jesus. In this social conception much of truth remains; but in Palestine the certainty of it is lost.' Thus an understanding of history deepened by geographical observation has led out of Christian Socialism exactly that man who formerly was its most brilliant and passionate representative.

One is obliged to carry the questioning farther and ask if some ideas of primitive Christianity are not positively opposed to the socialism of today. The historian knows that primitive Christianity not only did not move a finger to change social order, but required the individual to submit to that order as God-given and God-willed, including slavery. In Christian antiquity, in the Middle Ages, and even in Luther's time every thought of reform which went beyond individual benevolence and asked for change in general laws was a sin and an offense. It was first on English soil and in the seventeenth century that the idea of emancipation of slaves introduced Christian social reforms. But in all pulpits even now patience, submission, contentment are praised as special Christian virtues; and our workingmen, who feel in their hearts that they have a moral right to emancipation, are rejected by Christianity and driven to materialism!

These difficulties have rarely been discussed in the Congress. Only once (1899) was there a distinct expression, and that was in the course of a debate after a lecture. A resolution was,

1Asia, pp. 113-15.

indeed, unanimously passed which asked that the professors of theological ethics should give more attention to these subjects, but no important results have followed. Whatever solution of such problems may be found, it is already clear that no scheme of social reform can be derived immediately from the New Testament. Not merely the constitution of the Congress, but its leading idea, forbids the hope of a common practical program of demands.

A third fact must be noted which has importance for the development of the Congress: the cessation of zealous interest for social questions among the Evangelical clergy. This is the principal cause of the difficulties under which the Congress labors. The cause of this decrease of social interest of the clergy lies in their external and internal relations. Interest in the labor question has diminished generally in the educated classes of the nation. The new imperialistic policy of Germany and the commercial questions of recent years have absorbed all other interests. The official policy of the government from 1894 to 1899 was directly unfriendly to the laborers, and the rise of tariff on food under the law of 1901 has injured the labor class economically. The emperor has sharply assailed the Social Democrats, and that has been taken as an attack on the labor movement itself. The superior council of the Prussian church in 1895 recalled its message of 1890 and warned the clergy against social activity. This explains the cooling of zeal among the clergy.

Furthermore, the pastors must have regard to the conditions in their parishes. If they are active in political strife, they cannot serve successfully as consolers and counselors for all members. Here and there a pastor is found who has kept up his former social enthusiasm; but the desire to maintain peaceful parish relations restrains them from public discussion. As secretary of the National Social Society I constantly met such pastors, and I grant that, from their standpoint, they were justified in the position they took. Those who most cling to the church are usually officials, who share the views of the government, and the small manufacturers and shopkeepers, the lower

stratum of the middle class. These are the people who constitute the church societies, whose wives join with the Frau Pastor in sewing circles, and who are most closely associated with the parson. And these are just the people who are affected by laws protecting wage-earners: for their business cannot bear more burdens. As in every association and party the attitude toward fundamental questions is decided by the mass of the members and not by individual leaders, so the position taken by the church is determined by that of those who most participate in its life. It must also be remembered that more than half the pastors are over country parishes where few industrials are found, and so they are but slightly affected by the modern labor question. The economic evils with which they are acquainted are chiefly those peculiar to peasants-heavy debts, foreign competition, backward methods. Therefore their interest is necessarily, and from their standpoint properly, drawn away from the labor question. Many young theologians, who at the university and during their candidacy were zealous advocates of Christian Socialism, have naturally become cooler, and finally have gone entirely over to the agrarian high-tariff side, after they have spent a year or so as parsons in an agricultural parish. This does not imply treason to their former convictions; it is rather the effect of the surroundings which always influence

men.

For the Congress this situation made impossible a unified social policy of the entire church. There remained for it only the task of creating a feeling of duty and fraternal sympathy; but from this fact it followed that only pastors who were already inclined to study social problems were interested in the Congress. The Congresses have generally aroused intense temporary interest and enthusiasm, as at Frankfort-on-the-Main (1894), Erfurt (1895), Stuttgart (1896), Kiel (1899), Dortmund (1902); but they have left very little permanent result. Small and uninfluential branches have been established in Württemberg and Holstein. Few of the addresses have had great importance in the literature of the subject. The most significant are:

1891-Professor Herrmann (theologian, follower of Albrecht

Ritschl): "Religion and Social Democracy," in which for the first time in Germany it was shown that socialism is not to be attacked because it is necessarily hostile to Christianity.

1892- Frederick Naumann (pastor, and since 1896 writer and president of the National Social Union): "Christianity and the Family," in which our ideals of marriage, as taught in theological ethics, are tested by actual economic conditions.

1894-Professor Max Weber (economist) and Pastor Paul Göhre (left the pastorate in 1897, and in 1900 became a Social Democrat): "The Agricultural Labor Question in East Prussia." This lecture rested on an investigation started by the Congress, and the results were published by it. It had the effect of awakening the passionate enmity of the Conservative party against the Christian Socialists.

1895-Mrs. Gnauk-Kühne: "The Woman Question." It was the first time that a woman had spoken in a general ecclesiastical assembly. The lecture has permanent value. Since that time the author has become a Roman Catholic.

1898-Pastor Rade (editor of the Christian World): "The Religious and Moral World of Thought of the Modern WageWorker," an address which drew upon new materials in the writings of Social Democrats, and gives a valuable contribution to the psychology of the modern industrial.

This list will indicate how small a number of really fundamental, pioneer, and novel papers has been produced. During the last four years nothing has been added to the list. Of course, there have been addresses which handled grave questions and aroused deep feeling; but none to compare with those mentioned for power to arouse discussion in journals and books. Even Harnack's address (1902) on the "Moral and Social Significance of Modern Tendencies of Culture," deeply as it affected the hearers, has not been noticed publicly.

The membership of the Congress has never remained very long over 800. It increased up to 1896, then it stood still, and later declined. In the spring of 1902 there were 779 members. The income of the Congress the first year was about 3,000 marks, in the second less, and later it has fluctuated between 4,000 and